Topical Tropes

These are what we call the 'YMMV items.' Things that some people find in this work. We call them 'your mileage might vary' because not everyone sees these things in the same way. This starts discussions in the trope lists, a thing we don't want. Please use the discussion page if you'd like to discuss any of these items.

Angst? What Angst?: Felix Leiter turns up at the end of the film, and is remarkably chipper for a man who lost his wife to a murderer and his leg to a shark.

Base Breaker: It's fair to say that Pam Bouvier is one of the less popular Bond Girls. Pam does get points for being one of the few Bond girls as capable as he is, and one of the very few who never needed to be rescued. Plus, their scene at the end rivals the The Living Daylights in WAFF.

Complete Monster: Franz Sanchez can be charming, but he's also uncommonly brutal and ruthless in dealing with his enemies or those he perceives as disloyal to him. He brutally whips his mistress, Lupe Lamora, with a stingray-tail whip as a punishment for infidelity, and also orders his top henchman Dario to remove the heart of the man she has slept with. He feeds Bond's best friend, Felix Leiter, to a shark (he had his newlywed wife raped and killed right before), and he kills one of his collaborators, locking him in a decompression chamber, believing he stole his money. Towards the climax, he also decides to start "cutting overhead" and shoots his financial advisor.

Contested Sequel: Critical opinion of the film was divided when it came out and is still divided now. Notably, fans of the novels hold both of Dalton's films in high regard.

Joe Butcher to a lesser degree. He's so Affably Evil that he even survived the film.

Evil Is Sexy: Dario, by virtue of being played by Benicio del Toro (who was 21 at the time and remains the youngest Bond villain in the series). He's not as sexualized as Necros from The Living Daylights, but still has a... killer smile.

Fridge Brilliance: A tragic instance of it. Thanks to this movie, Bond and Leiter now share the same misfortune of losing their brides on their wedding days.

And it makes the ensuing Roaring Rampage of Revenge understandable when you realize that seeing this happen to Felix must have reopened a very traumatic wound...

Also, Sanchez was first taken down by Felix Leiter, and in the end again, by Felix's lighter.

The exchange in which Killifer snarks there's a one million dollar reward for bailing Sanchez out, and Sanchez casually replies, "No, two. Two million dollars." They're actually secretly negotiating his escape reward.

Fridge Horror: Bond didn't wear protection when he was dangling above cocaine grinder. The cocaine dust should have killed him, or make him addicted and f-up his health.

Magnificent Bastard: Bond's plan to systematically dismantle Sanchez's Empire before destroying him is particularly cruel. He then sets Sanchez on fire with the lighter Felix's bride gave him at the wedding. Seconds later, Sanchez's aimless, agonized running took him into the wreck of a crashed and leaking gasoline tanker, blowing it up and him along with it..

Sanchez himself would probably qualify in a world where he did not piss off Bond- he has "an invisible empire from Chile to Alaska" and is ready to expand; he is the de facto ruler of a Banana Republic due to bribing and intimidating its dictator; he keeps his For the Lulz attitude even in the face of a 1000 year jail term because he knows he'll escape in less than a day; casually hands out $1-2m bribes....really, if Bond hadn't made him so paranoid and ended up killing him, he'd probably have ended up the most succesful crime lord in history, even considering that some of that paranoia turned out to be justified.

Misaimed Fandom: Shortly after the movie's release, Robert Davi, who played Sanchez, was taken to see an actual drug lord in South America. Apparently, he loved his portrayal of Sanchez.

Values Dissonance: While not outright offensive, it's not very culturally sensitive to refer to Chinese and Japanese people as "Orientals" any more, as everyone does in this movie.

Vindicated by History: At the time it came out, it was initially considered a disappointment, partly from competition with Lethal Weapon and Tim Burton's Batman but especially from comparisons to the Bond films that had preceded it, mainly due to Roger Moore's soft take on he role. This, combined with legal issues over the franchise, ensured that another Bond film would not be made for six years, and that Timothy Dalton would not return to the lead role. License to Kill has since been re-evaluated by a number of Bond fans, who prefer its unique atmosphere. Whether it's one of the better films of the franchise or a misfire is still hotly debated, but at least the hate is far from universal.

What an Idiot: Killifer is dangling above a Shark Pool, and he desperately offers to split his payoff with Bond if he helps him. However, Killifer's in no position to be making such offers, as Bond could easily: A.) Take the cash and leave Killifer dangling. B.)Not take the cash, though still leave him dangling. What seals the deal, though, is that the cash is blood money, used to maim Bond's best friend and murder a bride-to-be. Therefore, since this is a pissed-off Bond, he: C.) Throws the cash at Killifer, making him fall in and become shark bait.

TV Tropes is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available from thestaff@tvtropes.org. Privacy Policy